The Missing Daf

Anyone on the inside knows that academia in general is full of intrigue, that Jewish studies is really one big ‘Spy vs. Spy’ episode, and that the Talmud Department is, well, the stuff of an oscar-nominated film.

This one is really too good to make up. The Talmud Blog’s most connected, most secretive informant, BM, who has made a name for himself in Jewish studies in every so many ways, just emailed me that a missing Daf from tractate Megilla of the Babylonian Talmud has just been discovered. This of course is from smack dab in the middle of the Babylonian Esther Midrash, and it certainly fills in a lot of missing blanks. It was discovered by an accomplished, traditional Jerusalem scholar, AB. I know what you’re thinking, another Friedlander Yerushalmi on Kodashim. But THIS, in fact, is the most exciting news in the field, even more than Menachem Kahana waving around the title page of some secret, Jerusalemite manuscript catalog. So go ahead, scroll down.

This is brilliant! My face has been hurting from grinning so much. I especially like the section concerning Rav Ovadiah (פשיטא דספרדים נינהו) and what the “Tosafot” did with that (s.v. לאפוקי)! Absolutely hilarious. Mind if I ask how long it took you to come up with this? It is one of the finest pieces of satire I’ve ever seen. פורים שמח.

For the sake of the historical record, I would like to mention that I, along with several colleagues, was privileged to establish, in the early 1980s, the S.J. Friedlander Society, an officially registered society of Yeshiva College (we even received a budget from the Student Council as I recall). One of our activities actually was enhancing YU’s then-skimpy collection of Friedlanderania, largely, as I recall, through Xeroxes of materials available in the library of a different institution, located at 123 Street and Broadway.

This is obviously an inauthentic forgery by someone without real lomdus. Everyone knows that a real peirush on the Gemara always has exactly four upper wide lines of “Rashi” to remind us how many times to chazer what we learn. Probably some academic looking to make a name for himself. :)